Breaking down the BSG budget

Brockport Student Government (BSG) has control of $1.34 million generated by the $96 mandatory student fee. Each year BSG formulates a budget and disperses the money among the BSG administration, priority services and clubs.

The 2012-2013 budget is divided as follows: $359,025.61 to administration, $812,723 to priority services and $116,424.14 to clubs.

Priority services include The Stylus, 89.1 The Point, Brockport Television Club (BTV), programming, promotions, campus recreation and the University Police escort service.

The most drastic cuts in next year's budget are in programming and clubs. Programming is taking nearly $20,000 in cuts, and clubs are losing about $25,000.

BSG Treasurer Tyler Brown said BSG had to cut $4,800 from the overall budget because the school isn't hitting the same enrollment numbers as it did in the 2011-2012 school year.

Programming had $305,733 allocated in the 2010-2011 budget and saw an increase to $369,573 this year.

Cutting nearly $20,000 next year still leaves programming nearly $45,000 ahead of its 2010-2011 budget.

Programming has consistently had the largest budget in BSG with any leftover funds are allocated at the end of the year to help fund its biggest and final event, Brock the Port.

"Cutting money from programming was something I did myself because the amount of money going to clubs was very small," Brown said.

Each club committee budget - Academic, Fine Arts, Cultural and Service - was cut proportionally to their current budget. The Academic Council budget went from $42,451 to $33,763; the Fine Arts Committee went from $32,546 to $25,613; the Cultural Committee went from $36,791 to $30,270 and the Service Committee went from $29,715 to $26,777.

The biggest increase in expenses comes from the on-campus radio station, 89.1 The Point, which required $7,458 in studio renovations and $17,500 for a new audio control unit next year among other budget increases. This nearly $29,000 increase in The Point's budget - bringing the total to $99,685 - is not long term, Brown said.

The Stylus received an additional $5,300 for increased printing costs and to re-instate the newspaper's travel funding, which was removed from its 2011-2012 budget. This increase brings BSG's total contribution to The Stylus to $46,575, $6,200 less than the newspaper's 2010-2011 budget.

BTV - which became a priority service in 2011 - has a $7,163 budget next year, $1,562 less than its current budget.

The BSG administration saw an increase of $12,218 in its budget for the upcoming year. The budget shows an addition of $7,075 to provide health benefits for three full-time professional employees and a $3,668 increase in the wages of those three employees.

The three professional employees are the office administrator Becky Bird, the business manager Kathy Yarid and the box office manager, Shareen Marquez.

The administration also required an additional $475 in tax shelter costs and $1,475 in payroll costs.

The BSG board of directors passed the 2012-2013 budget with these changes Friday, March 2. The BSG budget has been verbally approved but President Halstead has not yet officially signed the budget.